Medals update: Japan's Hirano Ayumu ushers in triple-cork era with Olympic halfpipe gold

The future is now.

We saw glimpses before, but on the biggest stage and under the brightest lights, Japan's Hirano Ayumu landed a pair of triple corks in the men's snowboard halfpipe finals at the Genting Snow Park to seal his first gold medal after winning back-to-back silvers in PyeongChang and Sochi.

The man who's pushing halfpipe snowboarding into a brave new future finished on top of a pack of 12 of the world’s top pipe riders in the best-of-three competition with a top score of 96.00, with Australia's Scotty James (92.50)and Jan Scherrer (87.25) of Switzerland ending up with silver and bronze respectively.

The star-studded men’s snowboard halfpipe finals were among the most-anticipated events so far at these Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. And they didn't disappoint.

Hirano's gold medal-winning run came in the third round -- in the final run of the competition -- and included a massive triple cork to open (his second of the night) and a huge1440.

The win sees him add a gold to his bronze from PyeongChang 2018 in these his fourth Olympic Games

James’ impressive switch backside 1260 into 1440 combos and Scherrer's double alley-oop 1260 simply weren’t enough to match the style, amplitude and technical nous of Hirano.

Three-time and defending Olympic champion Shaun White, competing in his fifth Olympic at the age of 35, finished his competitive career with three impressive runs. They were complete with his signature double McTwist 1260s and 1440s, but it wasn’t enough to see the California native and snowboarding legend end his career on an Olympic podium.

White’s best run landed the American – older than many of his competitors on the day by a decade or more – in fourth place before he fell in his final effort to